“First you have to know what personal safety is. To my way of thinking, it’s providing yourself with a stable environment in which you can pursue the activities and lifestyle you enjoy with limited fear of harm.”

“Does that mean you’d make me stop rock climbing?”

He shook his head. “That’s an activity you enjoy. I’m talking about ensuring yourself the kind of environment in which you can do your rock climbing, or whatever else you do for fun, without fear of intrusion.”

“You mean like burglars and kidnappers and such?”

“I mean,” he said, not especially appreciating her cheeky tone, “that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

She drank more of her wine; he noticed that her eyes were as black as Mattie’s and maybe even more dazzling. “Give me some examples.”

“I encourage common sense and reasonable precautions-”

“For rich girls?”

“And boys. And men and women. And the poor, the middle-class, the downtrodden. I give the same basic instructions to everyone, regardless of gender, position or wealth. I encourage common sense and reasonable precautions,” he repeated.

Their waitress returned and took their order, a cold pasta salad for Dani, lasagna for Zeke. He tore off a piece of bread and buttered it, then took a bite with a swallow of wine. He wondered if she was deliberately provoking him or if she just had a knack for it.

“An egalitarian bodyguard,” she said.

He decided it was deliberate.

“What kind of precautions?” she asked.

“The usual. Make sure someone always knows your plans, change your routine periodically, don’t draw undue attention to yourself.”

“And people don’t think that’s too restrictive?”

“Some have more trouble with certain suggestions than others. One executive I worked with hated telling anyone his plans, another enjoyed flaunting his notoriety. And there are always those who are married to their routines. It’s a balancing act. I don’t encourage recklessness or paranoia.”

“I see.” She took a piece of bread but skipped the butter. “What do you advise when something bad does happen?”

Her voice had softened, lost its bantering edge, and Zeke yearned to reach across the table and take her hand, but he held back. Kept his distance. It wasn’t just necessary, it was the right thing to do. Or so he told himself.

“Again, common sense,” he said, focusing on her question, his answer. “If attacked, it’s important to remain calm and to be assertive-to find a balance between seeming too weak or too superior to an attacker, or to becoming dehumanized. I suggest my clients give up money and valuables on demand, without question. In general, it’s best not to resist unless in immediate mortal danger-but that’s in general. Every situation is particular, needs its own reading.”

“What if you do choose to fight?”

“Do so with the sole purpose of getting away. Don’t worry about apprehending or defeating an attacker. Your safety should be your only concern. If you do use violence, use it only as a last resort, with authority, and never halfheartedly.” His voice, he realized, was quiet, intense, controlled. It was the voice that often convinced people he meant business. Dani, however, didn’t look convinced or intimidated, only slightly dubious, as if he just might be pulling her leg. “Again, the purpose of any violence is to debilitate your attacker long enough to make your escape.”

“And you give your clients tips on appropriate types of violence?”

“I do.”

Their dinners arrived, Zeke’s lasagna hot and delicately flavored, a nice counter to his concession-stand fare. Before Dani could ask him how to poke a guy’s eyeballs out with her car keys, he said, “I saw the book on my brother on your kitchen counter.”

Her face paled just a little. “Kate told me about it.”

He nodded.

“I haven’t read it yet. Should I not bother?”

“If you’re asking me if I believe what Quint Skinner wrote about my brother, all I can tell you is that his accuracy has never been challenged.”

She stabbed a twist of red pasta with her fork. “Accuracy and truth aren’t always the same thing. Anyway, I only got the book out because I wanted to know more about you.” She quickly added, “About what your appearance in Saratoga has to do with me.”

“Dani-”

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

“He’s been gone a long time.”

“Does that matter?”

He shook his head, hearing Joe’s laugh. “No, it doesn’t.”

“A lot of people think I should be over my mother’s disappearance by now,” Dani went on softly, “but you never get over something like that. You carry on, and you live your life, enjoy it, but that loss stays with you. Maybe it would be wrong if it didn’t.”

In the candlelight he saw the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and the places where her lipstick had worn off, and the slowly fading bruise on her wrist. He reached across the table and touched his thumb to her lower lip. She didn’t look at him.

“You’re not what I expected to find in Saratoga,” he said.

Her eyes reached his, and he saw her swallow, but she didn’t speak. And he knew what he had to do. Reaching into his back pocket, he withdrew the photograph of Mattie Witt and Lilli Chandler Pembroke in their red-and-white balloon twenty-five years ago.

He handed it to Dani. “My brother sent this to your grandmother’s younger sister in Tennessee before he died. It’s why I’m here.”

Dani stared at her mother’s beautiful smile and the gold gate key hanging from her neck. “Zeke…”

He rose, his meal barely touched. “I’m sorry. Take your time. Get your head around this. Talk to your family.” He gave her a hint of a smile. “You know where to find me.”

“Room 304,” she said quietly.

But she was pale and sat frozen in her seat, and Zeke threw down some money on the table and headed out, overhearing people chatting about wine, fresh pasta and horses.

Dani found her father lying on the double bed in the second upstairs bedroom, smoking a cigarette on the soft, worn quilt. He looked wide awake. “It’s unsafe to smoke in bed, you know,” Dani told him.

“No chance of me falling asleep, I assure you.” He sat up, ashes falling down his front, and tossed the half-smoked cigarette in a nearly empty glass of water. “I’ve stunk up the place, haven’t I? If it’s any consolation, I don’t smoke nearly as much as I used to. It’s-Dani…what’s wrong?”

She knew she must look awful-pale, drawn, as if she’d been seeing ghosts, which, in a way, she had. She could have stared all night at the picture Zeke had given her. She’d tucked the picture in her handbag and paid for dinner, and she’d debated running after Zeke and asking him to have that talk now. To get him to tell her everything he knew about her mother, the key. About her grandmother.

She wanted, too, his reassuring presence.

A dangerous man on so many levels, she thought.

She’d gone instead to find her father.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she told him. “What were you thinking about just now?”

He shrugged, looking awkward. “Myself, your mother. You.”

“I guess we could have made things easier on ourselves and each other over the years.”

“I guess we could have.” He settled back against the pillows, looking older than Dani remembered. He’d always seemed so vibrant, such a devil-may-care scoundrel. “When your mother and I married, I was so thrilled at having extricated myself from the force of Mattie and Nick’s legend-even that old cretin Ulysses’s-that I never…” He exhaled, shaking his head. “I should have been more sensitive to your mother’s need to rebel, perhaps to become something of a legend herself.”

“What could you have done?”

“Listened.”

“Did she ever try to talk to you?”

He didn’t answer at once. Then slowly he shook his head. “What good would it have done? That summer she disappeared-it was just eight months after her mother had died, and I blamed her unhappiness, her restlessness, on Claire’s death. I wanted to give her time to grieve, give her space. She didn’t talk to me about her troubles, and I didn’t ask.” He stretched out his bony legs; Dani saw that he had a small hole in the toe of his sock. “So she went to Nick.”